[JEDI.NET discuss] Immortal, because true and from nature, in the hands o

[Skaggs <per...@sw...>]

 dictatorship--this facing alone all his old compeers, met in due
legislative dignity, and bidding them one and all depart--strikes us as
the bolder deed. The scene has been often described, but nowhere so
well, or so fully, as by Mr Carlyle. We cannot resist the pleasure of
quoting his spirited account of this notable transaction. "The
Parliament sitting as usual, and being in debate upon the bill, which it
was thought would have been passed that day, 'the Lord General Cromwell
came into the House, clad in plain black clothes and gray worsted
stockings, and sat down, as he used to do, in an ordinary place.' For
some time he listens to this interesting debate on the bill, beckoning
once to Harrison, who came over to him, and answered dubitatingly.
Whereupon the Lord General sat still for about a quarter of an hour
longer. But now the question being to be put, That this bill do now
pass, he beckons again to Harrison, says, 'This is the time; I must do
it!' and so 'rose up, put off his hat, and spake. At the first, and for
a good while, he spake to the commendation of the Parliament, for their
pains and care of the public good; but afterwards he changed his style,
told them of their injustice, delays of justice, self-interest, and
other faults,' rising higher and higher into a very aggravated style
indeed. An honourable member, Sir Peter Wentworth by name, not known to
my readers, and by me better known than trusted, rises to order, as we
phrase it; says, 'It is a strange language this; unusual within the
walls of Parliament this! And from a trusted servant, too; and one whom
we have so highly honoured; and one--' Come, come,' exclaims my Lord
General, in a very high key, 'we have had enough of this'--and in fact
my Lord General, now blazing all up into clear conflagration, exclaims,
'I will put